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tv   The Last Word  MSNBC  September 20, 2012 10:00pm-11:00pm EDT

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hollering. spo for anyone who not a chance to see the shuttle moving around. if you saw it you know it was an awesome experience. but for this new couple to get a look at it in the air, best new thing in the world. now it is time for "the last board with lawrence o'donnell". >> tonight, as he cling to the wreckage of his campaign, the republican presidential cnomine is scared mittless. >> he says i hate mitt romney. >> he did not have a great week. >> if you think are you going to get to the white house you are going to spend time in this chair. >> why not admit that this is a stumble in. >> our campaign is doing well. >> we are talking about a campaign. >> i have a terrific campaign.
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>> he is going to get half the vote. i'm going to vet half the vote. >> they have a real problem. >> romney wobbles. >> he is changing his strategy again. >> we have thrown a different mitt romney. >> it is like an etch astretch. >> i have experience in health care reform. >> mr. moderate. >> who is this man? >> he is rebranding himself as a warrior for the 100%. is this who he is? i thought it was actually mitt romney. the thought that we are asking this problem is crazy. >> the clock is ticking. we are up to mitt romney 8.0. >> two duelling messages of unit fighting it out. >> it ain't the eye of the tiger. >> it is the thrill of the fight.
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>> in her debate tonight, elizabeth warren tied her opponent scott brown to republican madness and mitt romney specifically. >> it is not just about senator brown's vote. this is about the votes of all the republicans. jim the senator would become the person who would have supervision over the environmental protection agency. he says global warming is a hoax. remember, at the end of the day this race may be for control of the senate. >> with 47 days to grow until the end of the election the first nail was driven today into the construction of the capitol
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of the campaign. the most withering assessments of team romney continue to come from republicans this week. tonight peggy noonan writes, "the romney campaign he has to get turned around. i called it in competent but only because i was being po plight". the co-chair of the romney presidential campaign actually quit today and decided to become a lobbyist for bankers. seriously. there had been speculation that he would change senator fr are a na anfranken in 20146789 but
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everyone know that is is the strongest way of say that go i will never run again. mitt romney's captured comments at a fundraiser where he said 47% of americans who he thinks are hopeless losers unworthy of his attention ormains the top topic of the campaign. >> when you express an attitude that half the country considers itself victims that they want to be dependant on government maybe you haven't gotten around a lot. because i travel around the country all the time and the american people are the hardest working people there and their problem is not -- >> in the bad "newsweek" for mitt romney is, it is coming to an end with a poll showing that president obama has reached
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support in three key states. president obama leads mitt romney by eight points in iowa and five points in colorado and wisconsin. in all three states his lead is greater than the percentage of undecided voters. today's polls were conducted over the backlash of obama's embassy statement and the comments on the leaked tape. here is his rating. voters view him negatively in all three states while voters view president obama view him positively. on november 6th, president obama will win 308 electoral cleng
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college votes and president obama has a 76% chance of winning the election. there isn't any turn this week that it is going his way. the poll was conducted only the last day did the response to the poll come up. that could be a larger effect. >> you can see why people are starting to voice their disapproval in strong words. i think what you are seeing, is not only is the president pulling on a lead, but this support is hardening and enthusiasm is goes up. a lot of people are saying, things will reset. but at some point he has to figure out that mess saage he i
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going forward with. first he embraced the 47% comments. and then he is the man of the 100%. and it is way too late in the race for them to not know what the central message is. >> let's listen to a friend of the romney campaign? let's leisten to what he had to say. there in lies mitt romney's mistake. 47% are not slackers. in trying to make his point, he didn't word the criticism properly. so that is the best oh riley can do. >> no, he didn't word it properly and i think it goes to the problem with the core of his
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campaign. there was the quote that said any bay that we are not talking about barack obama's unemployment problem is a bad day for the campaign. any day that we are talking about mitt romney is a bad day for the romney campaign. what he believes when he wasn't. if you talk about mid mitt romney a negative rating the first time a major nominee has been negative, if you are talking about mitt romney it is a bad day for him. it is finding a cooked up distraction. it is true that if you are not talking about romney it is a slightly better day. this just in. we have hot new video of an romney on a iowa radio show that
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we got responding to these republican critics like peggy noonan. >> what do you say to your fellow republicans? >> stop it. this is hard. you want to try it. get in the ring. this is hard. and, you know, it is an important thing that we are doing right now. and it is an important election. it is time for americans to realize how important the election is and how lucky we are to be able to have the opportunity to run this country. >> crystal, she was quick on that trigger. stop it. that is her order to the critics. this is hard. being president is also hard. which is why we like to run an effective campaign. one of the thing that is won people over with barack obama a
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presidential candidate who had not that much experience in the senate was that he ran that kind of campaign. it has been the opposite. people had high expectations. his campaign has been a disaster and i think it comes down to the difference with being a private equity guy and being a start-up guy who knows how to give an organization a soul. this is a sam pacampaign with n. she is saying the candidate can't run the show and can't be the ceo of the campaign. he need to get his head screwed on right. she is saying he is a bad manager of this campaign which is a considerable qualification
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for becoming president. >> it is. first of all, i have a soft spot. >> stop it. we are lucky to have mit romney and don't you forget it. i think she has a understandable response that family members have. i get that. the problem isn't the marketing. the problem isn't the branding. give it a week and peggy would say it is so much better now. the problem is the product this is a defective product. and i don't care how many adds they run and they have a lot of money waiting on the sl but tsi they have a bad product. >> let's listen to this type of barack obama in which he uses the word redistribution.
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let's listen to this tape. >> i think the trick is how do we structure government systems that pool resources and hence, facilitate redistribution because i actually believe in redistribution at least at a certain level so that everyone has a shot. >> what is true of every government on earth. and you cannot, there has never been a tariff. and there has never been a tax in the world that did not involve redistribution. >> that is exactly right. if you believe in taxation and public education and social security or medicare and any of that. if you believe in redistribution he talks about competition and
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free enter price, because they think it is a sword for communism. >> the most radical part of that video is the brick wall behind him. as you said, what is the most red redist redistributetive program? that is the military. a lot of the thing that is we hold dear are government programs for the rest of us. we should thank those people. >> they thought they had gold. they thought the public is stupid enough that they would sink a campaign.
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>> they thought they had a chan change. >> i sensed there was coordination there. >> no way. >> thank you both for joining me tonight. >> coming up, mitt romney and his campaign staff are panicking. they are scared mittless. and mitt romney is not the face of mormonism. so says a historian who is upset about what he saw on the secret video of the romney fundraiser and who or what could get the cast of "the west wing" to walk and talk? they are back. you will see them back at work. ♪ [ male announcer ] how do you engineer a true automotive breakthrough?
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when mitt romney cast off
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47% of the country, he also cast off the values of his church. he will join me later. and next, mitt romney and his campaign staff are in panic mode. he says something and then the staff has to say he didn't mean that. that will be next.
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mitt romney is finally doing something very human as a
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candidate. i is panicking. he is scared mittless and when he gets scared he flip-flops. after getting caught this week attacking 47% of the people and saying my job is not to worry about those people, he now says this. >> my campaign is about the 100% of america and i'm concerned about them. >> and remember when right wing conservative mitt romney was running away from a health care conformer in massachusetts? well, that was then. last night he said this. >> the president said i'm the grand father of health care. i've actually been able to put in place a system that fit the needs of the people in my state and i'm proud of the fact that
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every child has insure and and 98% of adults have insurance. >> with mitt romney admitting that there were thing that is he couldn't say during the primary that he will now say, that means his campaign staff is panicking too. when they heard him take credit for being the grand father of oba obamacare, they knew he was giving his tea party base too many reasons. the romney campaign put out this lie in an e-mail. he totally dismantled the policies behind obamacare before and after it. joining me now karen, you are a
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communications director, you know something about communications. i'm figuring you can explain this sentence to me. i get the thing about when he said that thing about accepting credit for obamacare. he dismantled the policies before and after it. what in that as governor? that is like well like -- >> i have to tell you that is a new one on me. >> it is romney words. >> it s it is romney's world. >> yeah, i have to tell you, even when i talked to sean spizer monday on a radio show and he was trying to spin his comments to say, no what he was talking about was. these guys are in spin overload. that doesn't make sense.
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but you are right. they are in panic mode because, and here is what i think would be so interesting. this week mitt romney is going on this bus tour throughout ohio. will he talk the same way as he did i bet you he doesn't partly because he can't. as you pointed out he can't afford to tell the truth or afford to anger the far right wing of his base and sound moderate. you noticed he didn't talk about building a wall along the border. he talked again about stapling green cards to people's diplomas. but he didn't talk about the far right wing rhetoric when he was
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dispousing during the campaign. here was scared mitt romney again in florida trying to correct for insulting 47 of the american population and saying they are losers because they get government assistance. this was talking about his father's use of government assistance. >> my dad was born in mexico of american parents living there at age five or six there was revolution and they came back to the united states. my dad has to get help. by the way, that is the way america works. >> and joy, there was no welfare program at the time. there was no social security program at the time. there was actually a special bill passed in ago to aid the mormon refugee who came running
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back across the border having fled from the united states in the first place so that they can continue to practice pologamy in mexico. so it was, even better treatment than any one was getting in the current system. >> did you catch the swanky spray tan? i couldn't look away. it was physical pandering on top of the other pandering? and he didn't explain why he was in mexico which i think would have been helpful information. the insult tour didn't stop on univision. y he then proceeded to use the words illegal aliens in that room. what is he lou dobbs? i don't think he can help himself. i read a piece of an unnamed
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operative saying that the campaign has the smell of decay. >> new poll shows president obama leading mitt romney on the question of which candidate connects well with ordinary americans. 66% says president obama and 23% says mitt romney. >> of course, i mean and that is what is so telling about this latest attack of them trying to go after president obama's comments. the president's whole campaign has been about the fact that people create change. and we have to take responsibility and make the change happen. that is not what the rnc want. they don't want ordinary people
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to have power. they just want to use the people when they need them to cast the votes. that is the big difference i think we are seeing in this campaign between how mitt romney thinks about the population and how the president is saying look we have to be in this together. the sentence before the one that they were questioning, he says, i believe we are in this together. so, you know. >> he is not the only scared republican candidate out there. everyone is trying to tie republican candidates to mitt romney and tommy thompson is trying to explain why he is behind tammy baldwin. >> the presidential thing is bound to have an impact on every
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campaign. it is going to reflect on the ballot. >> joy read, it is tough out there. >> and he is right. the problem right now for republicans, they have to decide whether their strategy should be to break from them and try to save the senate. you have to count on plit ticket voting. mitt romney could wash out scott brown and wash out a lot of r e races to make it hard to make it possible in ohio and virginia. and independents who are breaking toward the president in the polls because of romney's only personal attributes. he is offending 47% of the country. that is 140 million people. it is going to be tough for him to go out in the crowds and try
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to bolster tommy thompson who probably won't want to get on stage with him right now. >> thank you both for joining me tonight. >> thank you. >> coming up, a former romney supporter is incensed by what he say in the video. and he wants you no know that mitt romney is not the face of mormonism. and in the rewrite, a rewrite of "the west wing" they are back for one night only. ♪ home of the brave. ♪ it's where fear goes unwelcomed... ♪ and certain men... find a way to rise above.
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mitt romney is not the face of mormonism. those words were written by a mormon historian who says he was incensed by the video. he joins me next and in the rewrite tonight, who are what could get the cast of the west wing together? we will have the miracle worker who brought them back together. in america today we're running out of a vital resource we need
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when the news of mitt romney's florida video broke i was in sensed x h. >>
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. joining me now doctor gregory prince. also "power from on high" and he is co author of "divide o mckai and the rise of modern mormonism. . >> what was your feeling? >> it grieved me and mistified me because we have a lot in common. we were both missionaries. i have worked closely with the types of offices that he has held. i know that mormon bishops spend as much time on their church duties on a volunteer basis as
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they do in their professional lives. i couldn't understand how he could turn away from that. >> let's listen once again to that statement that changed this presidential campaign this week.
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>> in your piece dr. prince you write the basis of mormon community stretching back to the earliest years of mormonism is that the more able have a sacred obligation to assist the less able. >> yes, that is correct. >> i were a supporter of mitt romney's in this first campaign weren't you? >> yes, i was financially. >> you talk about having a conversation with him when pbs was doing a documentary you suggested that it would be useful for him to appear in it and have a sane and sensible discussion of his religion there. >> the producer who was not a mormon had worked with me and
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made the suggestion. she was intrigued by him as well. and she is not a republican. she said it is possible that i will be seeing him. she said i will put him on pbs for an hour nationally if he would allow me to interview him about his religion. he had heard this before and said we have made the judgement that the religion issue is going to go away on its own and he declined the offer. >> there is speculation that it had something to do with what we heard on that tape about the 47%. there is a post tonight saying linking that to the notion that church i'm quoting it now that the church happens to have a historic horror on dependency on the state. >> i think you are referring to
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a comment on the post today that is half right. the church does work very hard to encourage members to be self sufficie sufficient. they work harder to make sure that those that don't achieve that level of success in life are not left behind. you see the bishops of the troops trying to help these people wherever they are and they don't condemn them and they don't write them off and walk away from them. that is why i was so upset that he would make the statement to the way that i in trer pretted it was writing off half of the country. >> kathleen flake who was professor of religion actually refers to mitt romney's thinking of what we heard as twisted. what she said, that is
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republicanism that is not mormonism. i agree with that. if you look at the social as sects of mormonism. it is progressive religion. but you wouldn't get that by some of the things that mitt romney has said. >> i think that mid and for other reason ares people think that mormon's probably line up heavily republican. what is your experience with that and is there anything in mormonism that would tilt some a voter one way or the other toward the democratic party? >> i irony is that over a century ago one of the apostles was sent out to convince the church member that is it was possible to be a good mormon and republican. the pendulum has shifted over the years. two weeks ago we were in
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charlotte for the democratic convention and had the first meeting for the democrat's caucus. i think it is safe to say that they have been removed from the endangered species lift. >> thank you for joining me. >> coming up. >> the west wing reunion. the cast gets back together for one more run through the hallway and don't be surprised if they teach you something while running through the wall way. they've been committed to putting clients first. helping generations through tough times. good times. never taking a bailout. there when you need them. helping millions of americans over the centuries. the strength of a global financial leader. the heart of a one-to-one relationship. together for your future. ♪
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♪ it has more of seven antioxidants to support cell health. that's one a day men's 50+ healthy advantage. in tonight's rewrite, a rewrite of "the west wing". tonight, it is must see tv once question. the cast reunited again for one more turn. they are begged to do this constantly and they always resist and getting them all in the same town in the same day is next to impossible but they did it and they did it for a cause and they did it for a political candidate. you want to guess which candidate to get the west wing
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cast to do it for a candidate? no you don't want to guess because you would be wrong. >> previously on "the west wing". >> hey, chrrisis. >> are you calling me crisis? >> stupid coffee maker. >> please tell me this isn't the crisis. >> is this a voting thing? >> what voting thing? >> how did you find out? >> josh. >> this is a disaster. it is a huge event unvif alled by the likes of anything since the dawn of history. >> boo boo. >> people aren't voting.
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>> for us or the other guy because there are two ways to see that. >> all across america voters are leaving part of their ballots blank and they don't know it. >> explain this to me like you are a two-year-old. come on i'll give you a lolli. >> people check the straight ticket box. they have to vote on the nonpartisan section of the ballot. >> that is the part towards the back. >> they have to look for it. but it takes an extra ten second to find it. >> we are thnot talking dog catching here. >> state supreme court. >> michigan is one of 5 sta15 s that uses this to bring the votes. this is a married mother of
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four. dean at law. fi fighting for gious sis justice people. she has fought to free innocent men and women and get the criminals behind bars. >> she
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married mother of four. she spent her entire career fighting for families of sick kids and victims of domestic
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violence and fought to free innocent men and women and she likes baseball and i'm going to buy her a ring. >> seriously. so do you like baseball? >> i do. but i think my husband and kids want to keep me. >> speaking of your husband you have a connection to the real west wing don't you? >> my husband is working in the real west wing these days. >> so bridgeit mary mccormick. how did you do this? a lot of people have tried to do this over the years. >> i'm going to have to consider mary kathrine mccormick. it wasn't that. that doesn't make any sense to me. >> well, i he have to give her the credit. she is a great sister and she asked a couple of her friends
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and before we knew it there were a couple signed up. >> we are seeing state judges which are more important than ever. the laws that they are trying toen act judgen act. those are being decided by state judges. those decisions may end up deciding who becomes the next president of the united states. i think sometimes it might be hard for you to give people a sense of the importance of state judges. >> i hope you are right. the whole purpose of this video is increase participation in these elections. the state supreme courts and state courts in general are deciding the important legal questions of all of us.
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state courts decide 95% of the criminal cases and civil cases which isn't to say federal courts aren't important. but in states where we elect state supreme justices. we don't have enough people voting. corporate interest groups donate huge amounts of money to candidates and according to the report for the center of american progress the states that have seen the most money in judicial elections now have supreme courts that are dominated by pro corporate judges. the issue as you well know is kind of the issue of our day. it is obviously something we are going to have to struggle with.
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in the context of money and judicial elections i think it is important and i think folks on both sides of the aisle would agree that it is the branch of government where money is least appropriate. there is little transparency in most of the spending that goes on in state supreme court races. number one because of the potential actual conflict of interest that the funders again, on either side would have with the justices and more importantly perhaps is the undermining of public confidence and it is important that our public have confidence in the decisions that our courts make. in places where things play a bigger role in